


the doctor's best friend

by remuselupin



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Doctor Donna, Doctor Who Feels, Doctor Who Season 4, Doctor and Companions - Freeform, Episode Fix-It: s04e08 Silence in the Library, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, Episode: s04e06 The Doctor's Daughter, Gen, I'm so done with the writers making the doctor handle this burden by himself :'(, Oneshot, TARDIS - Freeform, Tenth Doctor Era, a bad day in the TARDIS that gets better, doctor who emotional, he finally confides in Donna and she comforts him, read this whenever you're sad about Doctor Who, them being the best of friends :')
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 20:44:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14723301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remuselupin/pseuds/remuselupin
Summary: He did not know how long it would take, how much time and love mending would need to be ready to live again, but he knew the day would come when it did. The Time Lord closed his eyes.The Doctor doesn't need to carry his burden alone - Donna is there for him.





	the doctor's best friend

When Donna Noble woke up, the familiar blue translucent coral walls of the TARDIS were dim and flickering. She did not know what time it was and had long since stopped wondering - she and the Doctor had agreed on the irony of keeping a clock in a working and alive time machine. Remembering his beaming grin as he said it, she smiled.

 

She rubbed her eyes and stood up. The air was silent and cold around her - sickly, and she immediately felt something was wrong. A gravity not known pressed down her heart. Every slow step she took ached as the weight of a crushing sadness and pain pressed upon her, and the urgency of the situation forced her eyes open, her soul attentive. Donna ran past the many vast rooms of the TARDIS, running and never stopping, gasping and wheezing as her one heart thumped harder than it ever had. 

 

She crept slowly and the heart-weight hardened as she drew nearer, nearly forcing tears to her eyes. The Doctor was kneeling over Rose's jacket. What he had managed to salvage from the Time War, things he had stolen from his stay with the Master, Jenny's army belt, and many others she could not comprehend. He was devastated. The Doctor's shoulders shook, giving way under the surge of grief that had filled the darkness around him. Tears rolled down his face and onto the mementos before him. Donna stayed behind the wall, constraining herself from running to him and scaring the emotion out of him. The Doctor was never hard to be around, but his unfailingly cheerful mannerisms and desire for exploration never fooled her.

 

There was something behind his eyes, 900 or so years of grief and suffering, but it always disappeared whenever she took a good look at him. The sadness that could only leave emptiness, a gaping hole that hurt in everything he did. The failure to save the ones he loved, and the self-hatred of a being so powerful, of one who could warp time and save universes but could never save himself. It was the pain that the TARDIS could never solve, and its dimming lights and ashen pallor had come to Donna for help.

 

She ran to the Doctor, put her arms around him and held him tightly. He was limp and so weak he could not move, and his body kept shaking, harsher tears rained down, and uncontrollable convulsions. Grief fought the Oncoming Storm as choked and yelped through the most terrible and terrifying. Still Donna Noble held the Doctor's hand and didn't let go. Time stopped. Everything was so strong and the Doctor so weak, she could see the Time Lords, feel them, the Doctor's family, the Time War that had made it all a loss, the companions that had become his closest and had gone, the overwhelming guilt, the torture of the planets and universes and species, the hopelessness of a life too long, and above all the endless black vortex of such loneliness.

 

She would never forget these darkest moments of her life. The Doctor clung to Donna, half curled up and half kneeling, buried his head in her chest as he cried two hearts' worth of tears and let out 900 years worth of grief and they stayed in this way for a very long time.

 

***

 

When the Tenth Doctor woke up, he was in bed and Donna was holding his hand, eyes closed. Another tear rolled down his cheeks and Donna opened them, the expression on her face the most beautiful and gentle and kind. He did not know how long it would take, how much time and love mending would need to be ready to live again, but he knew the day would come when it did. The Time Lord closed his eyes. 

 

***

When the two of them were ready, the TARDIS brightened and whirred and became alive. It seemed like long years had passed, and maybe they had. 

 

"Thank you." The Doctor's expression was vulnerable and his heart was touched and there were so many things he wanted to say to her, some almost not making a sound. but she already knew.

 

"When you're ready, you can tell me all about it." She wanted to say back, but for the first time in his life, he understood.

**Author's Note:**

> It's near the end of Series Four (the Master, believing his daughter's death, River Song). The Doctor doesn't deserve to endure so much, or the pain and suffering that comes with his burden. I strongly felt I needed to write this, to go through what he does alone is unbearable. And I feel that Donna is the amazing friend that he needs at this time, though this isn't shown in the show :( 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please leave kudos and comments and I will very much appreciate them, this piece is close to my heart.


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